The papers mainly document Davis's artistic activities and ideas about mime and the theater between the years of 1958 and 1970, the period of his residence in San Francisco. It is important not only because it charts Davis's political and artistic development but also because it covers much of the history and daily workings of his major production group, the San Francisco Mime Troupe. Taken as a whole, the collection provides a good impression of the nature and scope of the avant-garde, radical, and anti-establishment atmosphere of San Francisco, in particular, and of the entire country, in general, during the middle and late 1960's. In addition, the various clipping files -- mainly in the review and trial folders -- give an impression of establishment attitudes toward the avant-garde.
The collection consists of notes, drafts of articles and of a book, programs, reviews, schedules, scripts; and business, legal and financial materials. There is, however, a notable lack of correspondence in both the personal and organizational portions of the collection. The papers have been organized into three series: Biographical Materials and Memorabilia, Writings, and Organizations.
BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS AND MEMORABILIA consists of four folders. The first two contain clippings and a biographical magazine article, and posters, playbills, reviews, and other such material dealing with Davis's early life and artistic activities before joining the Actor's Workshop. The last two folders contain photographs of Davis in and out of performance and of a dance concert in which he took part in New Mexico in 1952.
The WRITINGS file contains Davis's non-dramatic material. Included are articles and speeches, reviews broadcast by KPFA in San Francisco, journal notes, and most of the fourth revised edition of his book manuscript The San Francisco Mime Troupe (1975), here referred to as “Guerrilla Theatre from the Beginning of the World to the Day I Left the San Francisco Mime Troupe.” These items are arranged alphabetically by type and chronologically thereunder. It is here that Davis's theories about mime and pantomime and about the relationship between theater and politics are presented and developed. The various note files appear to be part of a systematic effort to record his thoughts on mime, theater, politics, and life. Together with the “Articles and Speeches” folder they form an informal journal.
The ORGANIZATIONS file is by far the largest of the three series. Included here are documents relating to various organizations with which Davis was connected: Actor's Workshop, R.G. Davis Mime Troupe, San Francisco Mime Troupe, Artists' Liberation Front, and Radical Booking Agency. Materials in this series have been organized into general, business and legal, and production subheadings.
Materials for the Actor's Workshop are sketchy and the few playbills included are the most interesting. Production notes of a type similar to the theoretical notes in the WRITINGS can also be found here. The papers on the Artists' Liberation Front are unusually complete and include the constitution, by-laws, policy statements, agenda and attendance lists of meetings, committee reports, and clippings. The folder on the Radical Booking Agency is more fragmentary and does not indicate how the agency routinely operated.
Material dealing with the San Francisco Mime Troupe and its forerunner, the R.G. Davis Mime Troupe, constitutes the largest set of documents in the collection. Included are scripts, photographs, playbills, posters, schedules, publicity, legal materials, a few financial files, and some business correspondence.
Especially noteworthy among the R.G. Davis Mime Troupe materials are the mime descriptions. Within these folders are very detailed ideas, scenarios, descriptions, floor plans, diagrams, plots, and criticisms. The mimes presented comprise most of the troupe's repertory at that time. Also interesting are the many photographs of their various “Events.”
Materials about the San Francisco Mime Troupe cover all aspects of its operations, although the records are not complete. Many of their productions are not covered at all and others are only sketchily represented. Productions for which holdings are most extensive are L'Amant Militaire, The Condemned, The Exception and the Rule, A Minstrel Show or Civil Rights in a Cracker Barrel, and the unproduced Futz. In addition to these gaps in the production record, many aspects of day-to-day operations are mentioned only incidentally, except for the period of late 1968 to early 1970 for which an almost complete set of daily schedules exists. The researcher is advised to use the material dealing with the troupe in conjunction with the book manuscript in the WRITINGS, which deals with many matters for which there is little documentation in the collection.
There are, however, many interesting items pertaining to the San Francisco Mime Troupe, including a series of audition forms; the troupe song book; articles of incorporation; tax forms, 1966-1968; and tour schedules, 1967-1970. In the Company Meeting folders are many notes and lists which document the organization and reorganization problems which beset the troupe during the first ten years of its existence. Also present is the legal material generated following the arrests of troupe members in Denver, Colorado, and Calgary, Alberta, for performing in A Minstrel Show.
Since members of the troupe apparently tried to conserve paper, many notes and letters are written on the back of old stationery, schedules, posters, playbills, press releases, and mimeographed material that are not elsewhere in the collection.
